Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Antonio Machado's 'Profession of Faith'

1987; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 64; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Espanhol

10.1080/1475382872000364119

1469-3550

Armand F. Baker,

Borges, Kipling, and Jewish Identity

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeBSS Subject Index: MACHADO [Y RUIZ], ANTONIO (1875–1939)RELIGION [AS LITERARY, CULTURAL & IDEOLOGICAL THEME] Notes 1. Of the critics whom I have been able to consult, seven interpret these poems negatively, that is as a statement of non-belief (P. Cerezo Galán, Leopoldo de Luis, Antonio Sánchez Barbudo, José María Valverde, Alberto Gil Novales, Rafael Lapesa, Ángel Martínez Blasco). Only three critics have made a completely positive interpretation (José Machado, Bernard Sesé, José María González Ruiz), while three others whose interpretation was basically positive feel that, along with the statement of his faith, Machado also expressed certain doubts or uncertainties (Aurora de Albornoz, Jerónimo Mallo, Kessel Schwartz). Several writers who mentioned these poems did not try to interpret their meaning, or did not do so clearly enough to be characterized as positive or negative. 2. Speaking of this same point, José Bergamín has observed that ‘esto es motivo de frecuente equívoco entre españoles que no quieren entender cómo se puede ser cristiano sin ser católico’, ‘Antonio Machado el bueno’, La Torre, XII (1964), 258. The wife of Machado's brother José, who lived with the poet during the last years of his life, also feels that his lack of support for the official dogma of the Church does not contradict his true religious faith: ‘No practicaba la religión, pero sí fue un hombre de creencias religiosas, como él mismo lo indica en sus poemas ... Su religión era personal, no la oficial’; ‘Mi cuñado Antonio Machado: Charla con doña Matea Monedero, viuda de José Machado’, Estafeta literaria, (1975) Nos. 569–70, 25. 3. Antonio Machado, Obras: poesía y prosa (Buenos Aires: Losada, 1973), 531. All references to this edition will be included in the body of the text with the abbreviation OPP. 4. Throughout history the term ‘pantheism’ has been used rather indiscriminately to describe several different types of monistic philosophy; however, according to modern terminology, the principal difference between pantheism and panentheism is that the former is based on a theory of the absolute identification of God with the universe, as in the philosophy of Spinoza, whereas the latter is based on the unity, but not the identity, of God and the universe. According to panentheism, God and the universe are one in that they share the same essence, but all that exists can never exhaust the infinite potential for being which is in the Godhead. When Machado declares that ‘el mundo es sólo un aspecto de la divinidad’ (OPP, 350), it is clear that he is a panentheist like his teachers in the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, even though he states that the philosophy of Abel Martin is based on ‘una concepción panteísta’ (OPP, 531). 5. C. Ch. F. Krause, Ideal de la humanidad para la vida, with Introduction and Commentary by Julián Sanz del Río (Madrid: Martínez García, 1871), 34. 6. Ideal de la humanidad para la vida, 243. 7. Pablo de A. Cobos, El pensamiento de Antonio Machado en Juan de Mairena (Madrid: Ínsula, 1971), 236. 8. Aurora de Albornoz has also observed that the image of the sea in Machado's poetry is used to represent two rather different concepts: ‘El mar es, a mi entender, en los poemas de este momento [Campos de Castilla], lo desconocido. Y lo desconocido no es sólo la muerte, sino también la vida con todos sus misterios …’. Then, in addition to its use as a symbol of the unknown, she has observed that the sea can also represent the concept of absolute being: ‘Podríamos ver en el mar otro simbolismo que caería dentro de su concepción heraclitana del mundo: el mar como símbolo del ser óntico, del ente, que encierra el principio y fin de todas las cosas … Este simbolismo—Mar-Ser—creo verlo—conscientemente expresado—en poemas más tardíos … Mas en algunos de los del momento que estudio [Campos de Castilla] también parece estar intuido’; La presencia de Miguel de Unamuno en Antonio Machado (Madrid: Gredos, 1968), 247–48. 9. In spite of the fact that the Church has condemned the doctrine of pantheism, this same concept is found in the writings of Paul, when he states that there is ‘one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all’ (Ephesians 4:6). God is ‘in’ all that exists, but He is also ‘above all’, in the sense that He is more than, or is not limited to, the existing universe. The panentheistic notion of the ‘world in God’ is also found in the well-known passage: ‘in [God] we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28). 10. What Machado says in ‘Profesión de fe’ corresponds to his thinking in the Cancionero apócrifo where the divine substance is defined as ‘unitaria y mudable, quieta y activa’ (OPP, 317). In ‘Al gran pleno o conciencia integral’, the totality of being is again described as ‘quieto y activo’ (OPP, 337). 11. As Machado states in the Cancionero apócrifo: ‘Quien piensa el ser puro, el ser como no es, piensa, en efecto, la pura nada ... El pensamiento lógico sólo se da, en efecto, en el vacío sensible’ (OPP, 333). This is also the concept which Machado has expressed poetically in ‘Al gran cero’ (OPP, 335–36). 12. Antonio Sánchez Barbudo, Los poemas de Antonio Machado (Barcelona: Lumen, 1969), 239. As an indication of how this negative interpretation of Machado's ‘Profesión de fe’ relates to his overall view of the poet's religious belief, Sánchez Barbudo has written: ‘Pero hay también quien deseando muy sinceramente a Dios, definitivamente no cree en Él. Tal era el caso de Machado, que, como vamos a ver, creía sobre todo en la nada … Era, pues, Machado de los fideístas que, más propiamente, o con más claridad al menos, podríamos llamar ateos, aunque ciertamente ateos insatisfechos: hombres que sienten la falta de Dios’; El pensamiento de Antonio Machado (Madrid: Guadarrama, 1974), 38. 13. Bernard Sesé, Antonio Machado: El hombre, el poeta, el pensador (Madrid: Gredos, 1980), 696–97. As he addresses the larger scope of Machado's religious thought, Sesé adds: ‘Por aproximaciones sucesivas, la noción de Dios se precisa así en el pensamiento de Machado. La existencia de Dios no se discute: ni siquiera parece dudarse de ella … Siendo Dios el ser absoluto, fuera de él sólo puede existir la nada, especie de extensión milagrosa del ser’ (697–98). 14. José Machado, Últimas soledades del poeta Antonio Machado (Recuerdos de su hermano José) (Santiago de Chile: multigraphed, 1958), 46. 15. Sánchez Barbudo, Los poemas de Antonio Machado, 287. In his study of Machado, Leopoldo de Luis refers to the search for God as a ‘busca inútil’. He quotes only the first four lines of ‘El Dios que todos llevamos’, as if this were the entire poem, and then he states: ‘Machado llegó a concebir un Dios inmanente, un Dios íntimo … No lo encontraremos porque es nuestra propia ansia de amor, nuestro cumplimiento amoroso’, Antonio Machado, ejemplo y lección (Madrid: Clásicos y Modernos, 1975), 118–19. In a similar vein, P. Cerezo Galán writes: ‘¿No es ésta la actitud más propia de un hombre que sólo tiene a Dios en el ansia desesperanzada y en el esfuerzo humano por hallar su rostro en el mundo? Creo que sí’, Palabra en el tiempo (Madrid: Gredos, 1975), 365. 16. Antonio Machado: el hombre, el poeta, el pensador, 697. 17. P. Pla y Beltrán, ‘Mi entrevista con Antonio Machado’, Cuadernos Americanos, LXXIII (1954), 237. 18. José María González Ruiz, La teología de Antonio Machado (Barcelona: Editorial Fontanella and Madrid: Ediciones Marova [co-edition], 1975), 79. 19. Like Bergson and other existentialist thinkers of his time, Machado insists on the limits of rational thought, which can never comprehend the dynamic vitality of true being: ‘Pensar es ahora descualificar, homogeneizar ... El ser ha quedado atrás’ (OPP, 333); and again: ‘el ser no es nunca pensado; contra la sentencia clásica, el ser y el pensar (el pensar homogeneizador) no coinciden, ni por casualidad’ (OPP, 334). This is not to say, as some critics have mistakenly concluded, that all efforts towards understanding are doomed to failure and that life is therefore without meaning. Machado sees the poetic or intuitive mode of consciousness— ‘conciencia de visionario’ or ‘conciencia integral’—as the true key to meaning: ‘Este nuevo pensar, o pensar poético, es pensar cualificador … Este pensar se da entre realidades, no entre sombras; entre intuiciones, no entre conceptos’ (OPP, 334). 20. José Machado, op. cit., 45.